Dell joins the world of Chromebooks

Dell today announced the Chromebook 11, the first laptop to run on Google's increasingly popular Chrome OS platform.

Dell finally joined the Chromebook scene with its Chromebook 11, announced today, sporting a specialized cloud feature that extends file sharing across desktops, laptops, and mobile devices.

The laptop is primarily for accessing the cloud, integrating Wyse PocketCloud that will allow the user to access their files, edit and share them across PCs, Macs, as well Android/ iOS smartphones and tablets.

Chromebooks are built for people who use the web a lot, with the Dell Chromebook 11 set to ship in January 2014, sporting a decently sized 11.6- inch display, a 1366×768 resolution, along with a 10- hour battery life and Intel’s fourth generation Celeron 2955U processor clocked at 1.4GHz with Intel HD Graphics. It’s priced at $300 and will be available in UK and US.

Thanks to the PocketCloud application (which will turn the Chromebook into a remote desktop), you’ll be able to access all of Microsoft’s leading software, including Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The app will also be available in January.

“Most schools are likely to add Chromebooks to their existing Windows-based PCs, Macs, and iPads, so having a tool like PocketCloud that can share files across multiple devices and multiple platforms is an advantage over those that can only use Google’s services,” said Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst at Technalysis Research, in an email.

If you’re reading this article and wondering what a Chromebook actually is, it’s basically just a type of laptop that happens to be a lot cheaper than offerings that run off the Windows platform.

This particular Chromebook is going to be perfect for people who want to access their documents and other PC-based data on the move, done via their smartphones or tablets. It’s something that would definitely be perfect for students.

However, whilst everything sounds good, there are already a variety of Chromebooks out there that pretty much do the same things – from competing manufacturers such as HP, Samsung and Acer. Well! Dell seems to be very confident with what they’ve created, and it’s likely that it will attract a lot of attention – but if the marketing is done right.